The maintenance of overhead wires, such as utility lines, phone lines, and communication lines, may incur problems from trees which may pose a risk of falling upon the wires or other structures. It is understood, however, that not all trees which have the potential to fall will actually fall and either obstruct or damage a line or structure. In addition, it is socially, environmentally, and economically unfeasible to trim or remove all trees which have the potential to fall. Accordingly, trees which have the potential to fall may be further evaluated using additional criteria which may identify the trees as “hazard trees,” “danger trees,” “risk trees,” or “trees of interest,” hereinafter referred to as “hazard trees” in this document. The criteria for identifying whether a tree is a hazard tree may include: whether the tree can reach the line or structure if it fell toward the line or structure; the health of the tree; and the probability of the tree falling toward the line based on the lean or position of the tree.
Current systems and methods, which visually identify trees as hazard trees by field patrolling large areas on the ground and via helicopter patrols, may be inaccurate, incur large costs and are time consuming. For example, ground patrols may fail to identify trees that are inside tall-dense growth or positioned at an unfavorable angle. Helicopter patrols are costly and do not always provide an ideal perspective for identifying the area of a fall within reach of the tree.
This document describes methods and systems that are directed to solving at least some of the problems described above.